


Clocks

by irishlullaby13



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, alternate beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:41:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6857314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishlullaby13/pseuds/irishlullaby13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A/U Prompt:  Everyone is born with a clock that counts down to the moment they meet their soulmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clocks

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is probably not 100% accurate. I felt a few things were too heavily implied for a teen rating, but not really detailed enough for warrant a mature rating. But you know what they say, when in doubt, go for the higher rating.

No one was certain when it started. Some claimed it was a charm cast by the _wicce_ of yore who wished to give humanity hope. Others claimed it was a curse... because knowing one's fate was a terrible burden, even when it was something concerning love. For Ichabod Crane it was a curiosity. 

The clocks would appear sometime between the ages of 10 and 13 and show a predetermined amount of time before one would meet their true love. Much study had been put into the phenomenon. Despite the research, there was still precious little known about them outside of theory. 

_Sometimes there would be a second clock displaying the years and months, just above the clock. If destined to meet your love late in life, one's clock would sometimes just be days, hours, and minutes and start counting down as the time drew nearer. Some never received a clock and lived their life with someone of their choosing, or as a contented spinster or bachelor—or in some cases, they died young. There were even a rare few that their clocks would often change in the midst of the countdown._

Ichabod had seen many friends excitedly watching the black numerals on their wrists count down to the moment they met their true love. Things did not always go as ordained, of course. 

One of his friends had not liked the fact fate felt he needed a studious, strong minded woman (a waste of beauty, his friend had said, something that pretty should not be that smart). Although she hadn't exactly been thrilled that her true love was meant to be what she called “an egotistical, self-righteous imbecile” (which no one really felt like countering her argument because she was right). 

The two now had bookshops side-by-side and were in constant competition with each other. Ichabod hated to admit it, but her shop _was_ the better of the two. Mostly because she had an excellent array of teas which she would serve up for her patrons. His friend had tried the same but... he had not the variety of teas nor the sweet tactfulness of his competitor.

But still, Ichabod found it amusing that fate had said they were to love each other but they had seen it fit to be nemesis' instead. Although there was gossip that the two had, on more than one occasion, consorted in a fit of mutual rage toward each other.

Another friend had been quite perplexed to discover his true love was the son of a blacksmith—he had rebelled against the idea of being “delicate” despite everyone, including his own mother, always getting the impression he was—but last Ichabod heard, the two had recently acquired a contract to provide smithing services to the Royal Regiment.

The reason the clocks held such fascination with Ichabod was not their purpose or even their existence. It was that his seemed to only ever read 00:00:00. It neither counted up nor down. It was just... _there_. And he could find nothing in the research of it ever happening before. He had even approached one of the men who did the research, only to be turned away.

“That just means you've reached the end of your countdown,” the man had scoffed. 

“You do not understand,” Ichabod had tried to explain. “I was awake when it appeared. I saw it appear. It has always been six zeroes, sir.”

“What was your name?” the man asked with sudden interest.

“Crane, sir. Ichabod Crane.”

For a moment something akin to fear filled the man's eyes. “I do not have time for your trivialities, lad. Run along and think nothing of it. Your clock is simply defective. Nothing more.”

Then he had been quickly ushered out the door.

His clock was broken. After time Ichabod began to wonder if it meant _he_ was broken.

Only his closest friends knew of his defective clock. 

_“Does it mean you haven't a true love then?” one of his friend asked. “Or that you already met them? Is it that Mary, girl? Oh, right, she hasn't a clock.”_

_“Perhaps your true love is books?” his dearest friend, Abraham asked. Ichabod was certain it didn't work that way. Then again, Abraham didn't even have a clock so what would he know about how it worked?_

_“Maybe she hasn't been born yet?” Mother always suggested when he felt as though he, himself was as defective as his clock._

He had accepted the latter until he reached his teens, then his twenties... even when he had met his wife, his clock still did not budge. Hers had disappeared before she had even met Abraham—she claimed her clock had stopped and disappeared when she was young, but she had lost touch with the individual which her meeting had caused it. So, now it was up to her as to who her true love could be.

And she had chosen him... the man with a broken clock.

  
#  


It was weird. Her clock had always been stuck at 00:03:15. No one knew why. Unlike everyone else, who had tidy digital numbers, hers were elegant, almost loopy numerals. It reminded her of the text often found on menus at the colonial themed places in town. Abbie loved the fact her clock was so different from everyone else's.

It was special. Unique.

But it was weird that it was always stuck at the same time. There were a few people with similar situations. Their clocks always started counting down when they got close to their true love. The later in life one was meant to find their true love, the more likely that was to happen.

Sometimes she would feel a connection with someone and sneak a peek at her clock. But it always read 00:03:15.

And then one day it started counting down. She had been in the middle of her shift, her and the Sheriff were getting ready to head out on a patrol—aka pie at the diner. She had gone to the bathroom to wash her hands and noticed it read 00:02:09.

Her heart leapt into her throat as she stood there, watching it, just to make sure she wasn't seeing things. 00:02:08

Her face warmed and she tried not to think about the fact in a little over two hours she would be meeting her true love. Abbie dried her hands and looked at her clock again. 00:02:07

She tried not to let her nerves show when she left the bathroom. How had she not noticed it had been counting down for over an hour? _Because she didn't make a habit of checking it_. Secretly, she felt like she was about to be sick. “Somethin' wrong, Abbie?” Sheriff Corbin asked. 

Abbie fidgeted. “My clock started,” she said, her voice trembling as she held out her wrist. 

The Sheriff arched a brow and chuckled. “Who knows, maybe we'll pull someone over as it reaches zero...”

“I don't think I'm ready for this...” Abbie admitted. She was wanting to go into the FBI... And at times she felt just too _damaged_ to have a true love. She had always thought that was why her clock never counted down.

Sheriff Corbin put his hands on her shoulders and gave her the fatherly stare that always managed to calm her down. “It's just a countdown to when you _meet_. That's all it is, Abbie. If they're your true love, they'll wait until you are ready. They'll understand you need time. Either way, it's always up to you.”

Abbie nodded shakily. He was right. Her true love would understand. They would give her time.

  
#  


00:01:58

Ichabod stared in wonder at the numbers on his wrist. He had noticed there were numbers where zeros had once been while frantically scooping water into his mouth. He stared until it read 00:01:57. He trailed his fingers over the numbers as he staggered through the woods, trying to find his way... somewhere. He had no idea where he was. He just knew he had to be heading somewhere because the numbers continued to get lower.

It wasn't until he emerged from the forest that he realized—waking up in a grave aside—something was very wrong. Carriage type _things_ rolled down a wide path of their own volition. For a moment he thought he was going mad. 

_Maybe he was_. Which would be just perfect. 

He was going to meet the love of his life and he had gone bloody insane. Unless they, themselves, were insane he could not see how it would ever work. 

It wasn't long before he found himself in a town full of sparkling lights. He gazed at them in wonder even though the people made great efforts to avoid coming near him. And the noise. There was so much noise. Next he knew, he was standing in the street and a man leapt out of one of the carriages, pointing a... gun at him, shouting. Was that a gun?

Caring not to insight the anger of any man holding what either was or was not a gun, Ichabod followed the barked out instructions.

It was considerably quieter inside the carriage, much quieter than he had thought it would be. Other than the occasional disembodied voice, which the other man responded to, it was even quieter than the kind of carriage he was accustomed to.

Once he was “booked” as they called it, he was lead to a prison cell. All the while his clock ticked down lower and lower...

00:01:32

That's what it had read when he glimpsed it whilst they were doing their _booking_. And one of the men made a wildly inappropriate jest about there being so little time left on his clock.

But now, sitting in the cell. All he could wonder was how much longer was left? This was all... confusing and... he was feeling so many conflicting emotions. He was afraid he would miss them... what if they passed by outside of the window as his time dwindled away? No, no, that's not how it worked. It stopped when they met. That's how it worked, wasn't it?

He had watched—enviously at times—as countless friends had eagerly watched their dwindling clock, waiting for those final seconds to tick by. The delight in their eyes as they lay their eyes upon the person who walked by as their clock hit zero, calling out to them to see if their clock had also turned to all zeros. 

_That moment when their hands touched for the first time and the numbers faded like magic._

He wanted that moment. He wanted it more so since he had seen the numbers replace the zeros.

  
#  


Abbie was having a really rough night to say the least. Two beheadings. One of them was her mentor, the man she had seen as a father figure. Bizarre circumstances on both of them. How the hell did the wounds cauterize? She was having a hard time wrapping her head around it even after talking to the coroner.

And her clock was still steadily ticking downward. Maybe it was just her nerves but it was starting to feel itchy. She fought the urge to claw at it until it was raw because... well, despite the fact she was terrified, she didn't want to do any damage to it.

00:00:09

She was almost to the point of hyperventilating when Andy came to tell her they had a suspect in custody. Her shift was almost over at any rate—She knew they would be sending her home as soon as she confirmed whether or not this guy was the one they were looking for. She was pretty sure it wouldn't be because she doubted there were many headless men running around town.

“I know it's hard for you Abbie,” Andy said gently. 

He placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. For once, Abbie was unable to fight off the cringe that threatened to over take her every time Andy touched her. She played it off by rubbing the back of her neck. “You have no idea,” Abbie said quietly.

Another thing she had no idea about was why Andy always made her feel uncomfortable. They had been friends since school. He had stuck by her through all the crap with her family. But in the past few years, everything about him just... unnerved her. Maybe it was a sense of guilt but she just couldn't bring herself to cut him out of her life. Of course there was also the fact they worked together so it would be considerably hard to do that.

That and he never had a clock. Never getting one generally meant that person would never meet their true love. Usually because they died young. Of course there was a share of people born without clocks that lived to a ripe old age too. But there was just something about Andy that felt like it would be the former.

“I should go home after...” Abbie said quietly. She shook her head. “It's just...” She closed her eyes and sighed heavily, wringing her hand around her wrist to massage away the tingling. _Was this normal?_ she wondered. She had never heard of a itchy tingling before. Of course her friends could have just all been so wrapped up in everything they didn't notice or didn't remember. Or maybe it was only doing it because it was, quite frankly, stressing her out as much as Corbin getting murdered and everything else that was going on.

When Andy walked out of the room, she looked at the numbers. 00:00:06

She had to hurry. Abbie drew in a deep breath and made her way down the seemingly endless corridor. Everything seemed to pitch and whirl around as they drew nearer to the cell block. Abbie put a hand against the wall and tried to catch her breath. The minutes were still counting down. The lower the numbers got the more she felt like she was going to have a panic attack.

“You all right?” Andy asked, approaching her again. “It will only take a minute Abbie, I swear.”

Abbie nodded shakily and told herself she could keep it together long enough to do this. When Andy turned away again, she looked down at the numbers and swallowed hard. No... no... It _couldn't_ be possible. There was no possible way her true love could be the guy Andy arrested...

It ticked down to 00:00:01.

_It will only take a minute_.

  
#  


It had to have been far longer than the hour and a half he'd had before they latched his hands behind his back again. He was fortunate enough that he had contact with precious few people in the amount of time that had passed. Actually, _no one_ had been in to see him since they had locked him in the cell.

Aside from the gentleman hovering in the corner. But he had been the one to make the the rude comments earlier.

Perhaps this was some kind of tactic to get information from him. Well, they could certainly try but he would not tell them a solitary thing.

His heart leapt into his throat as he heard the metal door open. When he raised his eyes to see who had come, he instantly recognized the young man that had restrained him as well as another officer from earlier. Then a fourth, tiny, hardly imposing figure walked in. 

Ichabod caught a glimpse of her wrist as her hand fidgeted near her neck. Six broad stroked zeros, exactly like the ones he'd bore for most of his life. She was terrified and rightfully so. He must look a sight. He knew he was capable of inciting repulsion from the fairer sex on his best days—usually through compliments gone horribly wrong due to his own awkwardness. This was likely more so at present, considering he had pulled himself from a shallow grave earlier.

Oh but _her_... He would gladly spend his lifetime trying to make her eyes sparkle with laughter, joy, happiness—anything other than the sadness and fear they currently held.

“It isn't him,” she said after a moment, turning her entire body toward the young man.

Judging by the disappointment that flickered in her eyes before looking away, he could tell she wasn't only answering a question that had obviously been asked prior to their entering. She was also sending him a firm rejection of what fate had already ordained.

It wasn't until he threw out his previous conviction of saying nothing and spoke to her that she looked interested. _Yes, m'lady, you are not insane. I know what you saw_ , he wanted to add. The man without a head walking and murdering people with ease.

  
#  


She was careful not to directly touch him. The last thing she wanted was confirmation that this crazy man was her true love. Abbie touched his sleeve, the back of his coat, hell she had put on gloves at one point, she had feigned leaving her handcuff key at home—meaning one of the other officers had to adjust his cuffs—just to avoid touching him. If the numbers disappeared that made it real. Not that his proclamations of their fates being entwined made it any less real.

Maybe her fate was to go crazy like her mom. Maybe that's why fate deemed it necessary to say her true love was crazy. Slowly she was coming to the realization that she wasn't going crazy. This man was not crazy.

_He was actually kind of cute_. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he certainly didn't mind his end of the deal. It was weird. Was it normal to just want to throw everything to the wind and _be_ with her true love? 

Once all was said and done, she took him to the hotel the department would put up fire victims in. “It's not a great place. A little outdated, but... it's shelter,” she said. “And you'll have an officer on duty outside your door in case you need anything. Do you have a cell phone?” As soon as she asked she realized he probably didn't even know what a cell phone was. His blank expression confirmed her suspicion. “Never mind. Don't worry about it for right now. Anyway... I bid you goodnight, Mister Crane.”

“There is one last thing I need to know, Lieutenant,” he said as she turned to leave. He shifted back to facing him.

He took tentative steps toward her, looking around the room questioningly. “What... precisely do all of these amenities do?”

“I can give you a run down tomorrow. I've had a crazy day and kind of want to get home and sleep,” Abbie said. “But... I guess I can show you a couple of things right quick.” She peered out of the window. “Your first guard is just now getting here.”

She strode purposely over to one of the lamps and reached up to grasp the small, dangling chain. “You pull this to...” _Nothing_. She chuckled nervously and reached to the one next to it. The light clicked on. Ah, the other one was unplugged. She made a mental note to plug it in before she left. 

Before she could show him he needed only pull the chain again to turn it back off, she felt him at her back and his hand was wrapping around hers on the chain. _Skin on skin_. Her breath hitched as she simultaneously watched his elegant numbers and her own disappear. Abbie closed her eyes. There was no denying it at this point. He was the one. Had he touched her on purpose? Just to see if the zeroes would disappear?

She tried not to shiver as his warm breath ghosted over a sensitive spot just below her ear. He leapt away as soon as the knock of her relief sounded at the door. Abbie stood straight and rubbed the back of her neck. _This_ couldn't be normal. There was no way it could be normal to feel _this_ ready to jump in the sack with someone. Period. Ever. 

Yeah they had permitted him a “wash basin”—or as Abbie called it, a sink—to wash up but the man probably didn't even know what a shower _was_ at this point. Which is what had led Abbie to her final offer. “I'm going to go get some supplies so you can survive the night and I'll be back,” she said, then opened the door. “If you need anything while I'm gone, just let your guard know and he'll give me a call.”

In the end Abbie wasn't entire sure what she had been thinking when she included condoms in the supplies. Although after being back at the hotel—and sending the other officer on a diner run—she was glad she had thought to include them because they came in handy once she finished introducing him to toothpaste.

“So you can have a fresh breath in case you run into any ladies you want to kiss,” Abbie said jokingly. “Or... gentlemen.”

He had wasted no time on finding a lady he wanted to kiss. And it had just happened to be _her_. That first kiss had somehow led to him fucking her against a wall _next to_ one of the double beds... and then _in_ one of the beds when she sent the other officer on a coffee run not too long after he had returned with the food from the diner.

Crane had fallen asleep shortly after. Abbie had taken a quick shower and gotten her uniform back on just before the coffee arrived. Before leaving, she tiptoed around the room labelling the things they hadn't covered... which was pretty much everything considering they had been too busy _consorting_ to really go over any of the amenities.

She was on her way to the door when she paused to take one last look at Crane's slumbering form. Part of her wanted to go over and give him kiss goodbye. She listened to that part and placed a soft kiss on his forehead before making her exit.

It wasn't until she was home, taking a much deserved soak in the tub that she realized—even though she was going to miss seeing the elegant numbers on her wrist—she didn't really mind her end of the deal either. Regardless, it was certainly going to be an interesting ride.


End file.
